Updated: Mubarak-to-Germany speculation gathers steam

Update 1:50 p.m. ET: White House press secretary Robert Gibbs says he has nothing to say about the Mubarak-to-Germany speculation.

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The German newspaper Der Spiegel advances The New York Times' report yesterday that a possible resolution could involve President Hosni Mubarak's transferring power to Vice President Omar Suleiman and heading to Germany "on one of his annual medical leaves."

"Plans for a possible hospital stay in Germany are far more concrete than had been assumed so far," Der Spiegel reports today, citing "sources close" to one of the hospitals supposedly under consideration.

Currently, Mubarak is residing in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in a holiday villa. Politicians from Germany's center-right coalition government under Chancellor Angela Merkel have said in recent days they were open to a hospital stay by Mubarak in Germany.

"We need a peaceful transition in Egypt. If Germany can make a constructive contribution in an international framework, we should receive Hosni Mubarak -- if he wants that," said Andreas Schockenhoff, a senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party.

The hospital in question, the Max Grundig Clinic near Baden-Baden, declined to comment, Der Spiegel said.